


a word for the almost-home

by honey_wheeler



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, First Time, Wedding Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 21:37:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1833139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither of them has much choice in the matter, something she knows as well as he, if not better. But still, he wants her to choose this. To choose <i>him</i>. It a surprise how intensely it matters to him in this moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a word for the almost-home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lit_chick08](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit_chick08/gifts).



> For lit_chick08, who has waited most patiently for this. <3

She’s quite prettier than he expected.

Not that he had any particular expectation, nor a picture in mind of the woman who would become his wife. It had been difficult enough to struggle with the idea of having a wife at all. Robb is not a child; indeed, to the whole world he is a man, old enough to rule Winterfell, old enough to rule the whole of the North. Some days he even feels it. But most days he feels little more than a boy, his sixteen years seeming barely more than a handful in the face of the life he must lead, a life that feels better suited to an older man, a wiser man. A man who has seen battles and war and strife. 

A man like his father.

His father had been wed when he was not much older than Robb is now, Robb knows. A scant few years more, and Robb would be as old as Ned Stark had been when Robb himself was born. Those years don’t seem scant from where Robb stands, though. They seem a great chasm, one Robb could never hope to cross. He thinks back on the few girls he’s kissed, the kitchen maids who giggled and clung to his neck when he pressed against them, attempting with artless hands to find bare skin beneath layers of clothing. Would his wife laugh and press against him? Would she want him? Or would she merely submit to him? The thought is so disheartening that Robb can hardly bear it.

Roslin does not seem near so young as he. Though he knows her to be only a few years older, there is something in the way she holds herself, the way she looks at him as if she knows some mystery he’s never imagined, that makes her seem a woman long grown, despite the youthful sweetness of her face. It puts him wrong-footed, has him fighting not to stammer out the vows as he speaks them in front of the Septon. It is only when he takes her hand and feels it tremble in his that he feels heartened. It is easy to forget that he’s not the only one who weds a stranger.

The feast feels both as if it takes forever and as if it’s over in a blink. Robb knows he spoke with people, that he ate a bit from his plate and drank more than a bit from his goblet, but he finds he can’t remember any of it when the women advance on him for the bedding. He’s seen bedding ceremonies more than once, but it’s far different when he’s the one being hoisted and stripped and groped; one Frey woman in particular – he thinks he remembers her name as Amerei – puts her hand directly on his cock, bold as brass. They leave him alone in the bedding chamber, bare as a bagfrog, not even his smallclothes to cover him. Of all the strange, uncomfortable things that have happened in the last few days, this is probably the worst. He sits on the mattress, then stands, then sits again with his back to the bedstead, unsure of how best to greet his new wife when she enters. He’s just decided that perhaps it’s best to stand – brazening it out as if there’s nothing odd or unusual about this – when the door opens and she’s thrust inside.

They’ve left her in her shift, perhaps because most of the men preparing her were her brothers and uncles. Or perhaps bedding is simply done differently outside the North. It strikes Robb how little he knows about her life or her House or her world. And she knows as little of his. They are marrying complete strangers. It’s one more thing he never expected on the day he saw his father and his sisters off in Winterfell’s courtyard.

He also never expected to see her in her shift, the laces loose in the valley of her breasts, the hem clinging to her calves, and everything in between glowing and transparent in the firelight, and feel a heady and instant desire. It’s a good thing he remained seated. As casually as he can, he shifts on the mattress and flips a corner of the furs over his lap, though whether he does that for her sake or his own, he’s not entirely sure.

Neither speaks. Robb wonders if he should stand and cross the room to her side – burgeoning erection notwithstanding, he thinks with a grimace – or invite her to sit beside him on the bed. But without any prompting, she moves on quiet feet, pausing on the opposite side of the bed from where he sits. Her eyes meet his briefly, and in them Robb is relieved to see no fear or apprehension, merely uncertainty. He would not like for her to be afraid of him, though he could hardly blame her.

The mattress dips beneath him as she climbs atop it, resting on one hip with her legs tucked to the side. He remembers seeing Sansa sit just that way, proper and ladylike, as she sat on the floor to curry Lady’s coat. A wave of homesickness rises in his throat, so strongly that his tongue feels thick and useless. Hastily, he pushes all thought of home aside. It would not do for his lady wife to see him weep on their wedding night. She is part of his home from now on. And Robb cannot deny that she’s a lovelier wife than he ever dared hope. Doing his best not to outright stare, he twists to face her.

Long moments pass, so many that Roslin begins to fidget. With a start, Robb remembers that he’s supposed to touch her now. It’s only that he so wishes to _look_. Robb is not entirely unfamiliar with girls, and he’s certainly done some imagining – though not as much as listening to Theon made it seem he should, which caused him some consternation before his world became preoccupied with war rather than women – but imagining a woman bare, he’s learning, is quite a different thing from truly seeing.

Everything about her seems soft: the rosy color of her lips, the smooth curve of her cheek, the inviting roundness of hip and breast beneath the near transparency of her shift in the firelight. A shift that shows the careful arc of her ribcage, the sweet nip of her waist. The shadowy wedge at the apex of her thighs. Robb’s mouth goes dry. He’s seen many a shift before, his mother’s and his sisters’ namely, but they’ve never looked a thing like this.

“Is it so much warmer here in the Neck that your shifts can be as thin as a wish?” he asks as he tests the fabric laying over her collarbone with the tips of his fingers, his voice sounding surprisingly rough to his own ears. It’s the first thing either of them has said since the feast and Roslin starts at the sound of the words.

“It’s,” she begins, and then blushes, ducking her head and peaking up at him from beneath her lashes in a manner so fetching that it leaves Robb feeling nearly dizzy. “It’s special. For a lady’s…for _my_ bedding.”

“Special,” he echoes, sliding his fingertips down the edge of the neckline, until he just begins to feel the soft swell of her breast against his knuckles.

“Does it displease you, my lord?”

Robb huffs out something close to a laugh. “Hardly.”

She smiles at that, dimples pressing into her cheeks. If Robb had felt almost dizzy before, he’s practically light-headed now. The idea that she is his to touch, that she might wish to touch _him_ … It’s enough to have him embarrassing himself in his breeches like a common boy rather than a King.

“Shall I remove it?” she asks.

“Do you wish to?” There is surprise in her face at his question. Robb wonders what her family might have told her before they were wed – that she must submit to him, perhaps, and please him. Might she have even refused, if given the chance? It’s something he’ll have to remind himself of; he is not the only one who has been given little choice in this.

“I’m,” she stammers, her hands fluttering like two small birds. “I’m not sure.”

Her confusion emboldens Robb, making him feel more sure. He may not feel confident of much lately, having no experience of rule and little more of war, but he knows he can put her at ease. 

“Perhaps you’ll allow me to convince you,” he says with a rakish grin and a teasing wink. Her answering laugh is high and swift, another thing about her that puts him in mind of a bird. His little thrush. His wife.

Her chin dips in a nod. For a moment, Robb is unsure how to begin. He has a giddy thought that if Maester Luwin were here, he could teach Robb, as he taught him so many other things. Then the desire to taste her lips overrides everything and he leans forward to touch his mouth gently to hers.

“They’re as soft as they look,” he murmurs when he pulls away. She blushes again, and opens her mouth as if to speak, but he catches the words with his own mouth, inhaling them with her breath as he traces his tongue over the line where her upper lip turns inside her mouth. To his surprise, she giggles, her hand coming up to rest on his chest.

“That tickles,” she explains when he pulls back to look at her. Part of him wants to back away, sure he’s doing everything wrong. The rest of him – most of him – is fixed on the tiny sweep of her fingers, back and forth through the hair at his chest.

“I beg your forgiveness, my lady,” he says. “How shall I make amends?” He can see her weighing things in her head, deciding on what she’s permitting. _Anything,_ he wants to tell her. _Everything._ But he forces himself to remain silent, waiting.

“Kiss me again,” she says finally, looking almost surprised at her own boldness. “More firmly, please. If…if you don’t mind.”

In answer, he captures her mouth the way he’s been dying to. A small sound lodges in her throat and her head falls back, tilting up to his lips in a way that arouses protective tenderness and painful desire in equal measure.

He doesn’t remember bearing her down to the mattress, but that’s where they are, her hands curled over his shoulders and his knee insinuated between hers. Minutes could have passed, or an hour, he has no idea. It’s not enough, no matter how long it’s been. Her mouth tastes richer than any dish he’s ever eaten, sweeter than any dessert. He tries to keep still, but he can’t help rocking into the cradle of her hips, especially not when she gasps and writhes in response, one of her legs hooking around the back of his knee. It’s almost more than he can handle. The idea of kissing her for years to come is potent enough, but imagining all the ways he can touch her is enough to destroy him in the best way.

He doesn’t hear her at first, so focused is he on kissing her jaw and throat and the hollow of her ear. She has to repeat herself for the words to penetrate.

“I think I’m convinced,” she says again. Her hand is wound in the curls at the nape of his neck and she tugs gently, until he looks up at her. “My shift.”

Robb’s mouth goes dry. He nods, kissing her once more before levering himself off her and helping her to sit up. Together, they work the hem out from beneath her hips and pull the shift over her head. Robb sits back on his heels to look at her, his desire a clenched fist in his gut.

She is golden all over in the firelight. It glints in her hair and her eyes, bathes her lips in amber and turns her skin into that of a golden pear harvested at the end of summer. No, he corrects himself, his blood so hot in his veins that the air around him feels nearly cold in comparison. Not a pear. She is a peach, with soft, golden furring – invisible, he suspects, in the light of day – over each dip and curve. He’d no idea such a thing existed. Even if he had, he couldn’t imagine that he would have wanted to bite her like the peach she seems, to sink his teeth into her sweet flesh and lick her from his lips the way he’s burning to right now. Gods. Married a handful of hours and he’s already turned into an animal.

Roslin’s brow dips at his continued silent gawk, her chin dipping low to her chest and her arms creeping up to cover herself when he’s stared for far longer than is seemly.

“Do I not please you, Your Grace?” she whispers, and Robb could kick himself from how small her voice sounds.

“No!” he exclaims, then shakes his head in irritation at himself. “I mean, yes, you do. Very much so. You’re very beautiful. I just… I’ve never seen a woman bare like this. I’m sorry, I’m staring like a green boy. I suppose I _am_ a green boy.” He can’t help the flush that burns his cheeks when he speaks the words, a flush that he already feels creeping down his neck and over his chest, the unhappy curse of Tully coloring. He grins at her in wry apology. “Surely you expected a man with more experience. Perhaps it is I who does not please you.”

She looks at him a long moment, searching his eyes for something. Then, slowly, her arms fall away, and she takes his hand in hers. “You do not displease me, Your Grace.”

“Robb,” he corrects automatically. “Please. I should be Robb to you.”

“Robb,” she agrees, giving him a shy smile. Then, in a gesture far bolder than Robb ever expected, she takes his hand and leans back, pulling him down to lie beside her. She sets his palm on her belly, over the gold-furred curve just below her navel. “You may touch,” she whispers. “If you would like.”

He’s torn between looking at her face – eyes wide and dark, white teeth sunk into the rose of her lower lip as she bites it in…nerves? Perhaps desire? – and looking at the silken skin he touches as he spreads his fingers as wide as they’ll go, his palm sinking slightly into the soft yield of her abdomen.

“I would like,” he says, his voice sounding strange and rough to his own ears.

For a long moment, he keeps his hand still, noting each twitch and shiver of her belly under his palm. Robb thinks there could be nothing softer in the world than the feel of her. He keeps his hand still for so much longer that she begins to fidget. Could she feel the same quaking desire that Robb has gathering in the pit of his belly? Could she want him to touch her as much as he wishes to do so? It seems unthinkable. It seems _amazing_.

The sound she lets out at the first touch of his fingers between her legs is like the sweetest music. He’s never felt anything so good. Soft and slick and warm – nothing he’d ever imagined could compare. There’s little skill in his touch, but it doesn’t seem to matter to Roslin. Her skin is flushed, her knees and cheeks and the slope of her chest turning a becoming shade of pink. Her uneven breathing washes over his lips when she turns her face towards his, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she strains towards his hand.

“How does that feel?” he asks. He barely recognizes his voice, it sounds so rough.

“Um,” she hums, pressing her lips together. “Nice. That…oh, that feels very…nice.”

She seems to hover over some precipice, struggling for something she can’t quite grasp as he touches her with rapidly deteriorating control. Knowing there’s only so long he can hold out, he moves to kneel on the mattress between her thighs. Belatedly, he thinks that he’s rather glad the women had stripped him earlier, as he thinks that if he had to remove his tunic now, he would scrape his chin raw on the laces in his haste. As if seeing him for the first time, her eyes widen to the size of hen’s eggs as she looks at his chest, his belly. His cock. It’s violently exciting to watch her look at him, something Robb hadn’t quite expected. Tentatively, she reaches out with one hand and traces a finger down the center of his chest and along the thicker, darker hair that arrows down his belly.

“You’re russet all over,” she says wonderingly.

“A Stark in a Tully body,” he says, gritting his teeth in a smile as he withstands the exquisite torture of his curious exploration. His control is tested further when her finger dips into his navel and below, her wrist brushing his cock with the barest pressure that’s nonetheless enough to make stars to explode behind his eyelids.

“Tully everywhere,” she whispers.

“Roslin,” he says, leaning over her on his forearms. “Will you allow me? Are you still convinced?” The question is genuine – nearly desperate – despite Robb’s attempt at a teasing tone. Neither of them has much choice in the matter, something she knows as well as he, if not better. But still, he wants her to choose this. To choose _him_. It a surprise how intensely it matters to him in this moment.

She does not mistake his meaning. A faint crease forms between her eyebrows as she looks at him, as if she can hear the turmoil of his thoughts. Who was she before she became his intended? he wonders. Did she sing, or play harp, or ride horses? Did she and her siblings bicker and play and laugh like his own? Was she happy? Gods, what a world they’ve both landed in. Marriage first, getting acquainted afterward. Suddenly he thinks perhaps he should stop, that the world won’t end if he does not bed her this night.

“Roslin, I-”

“I am,” she says, interrupting his words. “I want to.” She draws her knees up alongside his hips, tilting herself against him, rubbing against his hard cock in a way that could make him weep. Suddenly he can wait no longer. Patience flies from him on swift wings as he falls forward upon her, his lips fumbling to find hers the way his hand fumbles between them to stroke at her once more.

“Please tell me you’re ready,” he begs, his weight held on one trembling arm.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she says with a smile that’s part shy, part rueful, and part – Robb hopes beyond hope – desiring. If he stops, he’ll be lost, so he takes himself in hand to guide himself inside her, hoping that if it is more duty than desire that makes her ready, she’ll let him spend the coming years making amends for it.

“Gods,” he breathes as her wet warmth envelopes him. Wet is good, he thinks desperately as he slides forward as slowly as he can manage. At least from what he’s heard from Theon. It’s certainly good for him. With stunning clarity, he sees now that he could never go back, not now that he knows. He could never again be the person who’s never felt this bliss.

He tries to make it good for her. When she inhales sharply and shifts beneath him, her face twisting in discomfort, he curses Theon, then his father and Maester Luwin, everyone who left him little more prepared for this than Bran or even Rickon might be. It’s one thing to touch a woman in a way that brings her pleasure, it seems, but quite another to lay with her in the same way.

“I’m sorry,” he pants, pushing up on his elbows and moaning when that only buries him more deeply within her. “Should I…?”

“No,” she says, her hands on his waist betraying a slight tremble. “Please, finish.”

“Roslin-”

“It’s alright, Your Gra- Robb. Please.”

His name sounds impossibly brave on her lips. He kisses her forehead, her eyes, her chin, and begins to move within her, hating the way she winces when he moves too deeply. It doesn’t feel any less bloody amazing, is the horrible part, and he hates that he can enjoy such a thing even as she does not.

For his own purposes he peaks too soon, but for her sake, it probably does not happen soon enough. All his imaginings about how good it would feel pale in comparison to the reality. Her breast is soft beneath his cheek when he half-collapses on her, his lungs burning with the force of his breathing.

“I’m sorry,” he says when he can manage words again. “I did not wish to hurt you.”

“You did not hurt me,” she tells him, pausing as she considers, then adding, “not much. And there was pleasure before you…before.”

“Aye. For me as well.” He feels a tug on the hair at his nape and she makes a wry, amused sound. Even without looking up he can imagine the expression on her face. “Alright, pleasure before and during and after for me. But I have hope it will feel that way for you as well.”

“Will you…” she starts. “Can we try again?” A hundred yeses are on the tip of Robb’s tongue when she squeezes her knees around his hips and hitches up against him, and he realizes to his chagrin and dismay that she means right now. He groans, turning his face to her salt-slick skin.

“It is my fondest wish that I could take you again this instant, but alas, I cannot. Not yet.”

“Ah,” she says, disappointment in her voice, but also a trace of gentle amusement. “Well. This is also nice.”

“It is,” Robb agrees. And he finds that the words are true. And for now that is enough.

_title from "there and back again" by n.m.h._


End file.
